


Facets

by mari4212



Category: Chronicles of Narnia
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-12-30
Updated: 2009-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-05 12:32:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mari4212/pseuds/mari4212
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are always parts of ourselves we don't reveal to everyone.  These are some of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lucy

1.

Sometimes, she gets very jealous of her sister. It's hard not to. Susan is beautiful, gracious, and well-spoken at all times, whereas Lucy can barely keep her temper when the diplomats start bickering or some other kingdom's ambassador refuses to deal with her because she's too young or because she is not a king, as though either of those meant anything in Narnia.

Even the suitors can sometimes make Lucy envious. Not that she'd ever want most of them herself. A great many of them were obnoxious boors, or sent obnoxious boors to represent them, and Lucy didn't think very highly of obnoxious boors. It wasn't the suitors themselves that Lucy found herself wanting, but the attention they always showered upon Susan. Lucy knew that she was considered to be quite lovely herself, but she knew as well as anyone else with eyes to see that Susan was the true beauty of the family. And it hurt, sometimes, to watch when everyone in the room's eyes turned to watch as Susan entered, even the men talking to Lucy at the time. It was just one more way that Lucy would never measure up to her sister.

Most days, Lucy knows that jealousy is very wrong, and how much Susan would hate it if she knew that Lucy felt inadequate. On those days, it's easy enough to talk herself out of it and go do something useful around the castle to distract herself.

Sometimes, though, it's easier to just give in and feel jealous for a day, even if it does make her miserable and perfectly nasty to everyone around.

2.

Lucy's favorite sibling was Edmund. Not Susan, even though Susan was the kindest of them all, and always had a moment to spare if Lucy needed help with any problem. And not Peter, who was always there to comfort and defend her in any trouble, and who only needed to embrace her and she felt loved and protected all at once.

It was Edmund. Edmund, who at times was just as awkward and unsure as she was about how to be a ruler of Narnia. Edmund, who could make her laugh at the worst moments possible with just one word or a wry glance. Edmund, who was her confidant and confessor. Edmund, who needed her just as much as she needed him. He was the only one of her siblings who ever seemed comfortable showing her his darker side, his faults and vulnerabilities, just as she in turn showed him all the parts of herself that she wasn't proud of, all the picky details and flaws that made them both real people. Edmund, who would be just as surprised to realize that he was her favorite as she had been to realize that she did play favorites.

She loved Susan and Peter, really, she did. More than anything else in the world, she loved her whole family. But they never needed her to be anything but someone to take care of, it seemed, and it was hard to know how to deal with that. Edmund needed someone to love him as much as she needed someone to love.

3.

She'd been frightened by some of their subjects, at first. She knew that most of the Narnians were good, and that they were glad to see the Witch defeated and Narnia restored. But some of them had been so big, and the sort of creatures that she'd been warned to avoid back in Spare 'Oom. The first time a delegation came from the talking bears, her knuckles had been white, from her gripping the arms of her throne so hard, trying not to be scared, or at least not to let it show to anyone but herself.

When one of the delegates fell asleep in the first hour of negotiations and started snoring and sucking on his paws, and the other one just rolled her eyes and gave the same sort of exasperated sigh that Susan always did whenever she or Edmund did anything undignified in public, Lucy laughed. After that, it wasn't quite so scary to meet the rest of her subjects.

Well, except for the representatives of the good wolf clans. But that was the exception that proved the rule, especially given the wolves she'd met first. No one, not even the wolves themselves, blamed her for that.

4.

She had bad dreams, sometimes; nightmares that left her shaking. She would walk the halls of Cair Paravel those nights, stopping in front of each of her siblings' rooms to listen at their doors for any signs of life. Only when she could hear Edmund's heavy snoring, or the murmurs Susan would make at times when she was sleeping, or Peter's pacing steps as he worked through something could she calm herself enough to go and sleep again.

The dreams changed over time. At first, when they were still new to Narnia, there were dreams of harsh whistling noises and screeching sirens, the ground shaking, and the tense twisting look of fear and worry on their mother's face. Those dreams would alternate with dreams of the Stone Table, the fierce hatred and poisonous joy on the Witch's face and the sickening thud of the knife hitting flesh, or dreams of Edmund's face pale and marked with blood against the grass. As time passed, they were replaced with others, new fears. Peter's face gray with worry and drawn with pain as he wrote out letters to families of soldiers who hadn't returned from battle. Susan laughing with some faceless suitor and the creeping dread that this time, he'd be the one to take her away for good.

There was never a fortnight gone by in which Lucy wouldn't have to walk the halls, listening for her siblings to remind herself that they were still there.

5.

Sometimes, she just needed to go away. She loved her kingdom dearly, and loved her family just as much. But sometimes, she needed to escape from the duties of being a Queen and a sister. Those days, she needed to break away from everything and simply be Lucy, with the sun on her face and the wind in her hair.

She'd saddle her horse in the early dawn, when light was just breaking over the waves of the sea and the stars' song was just fading. She'd leave a note where one of her siblings would easily find it, and ride off before the rest of the castle's inhabitants had awakened. She would ride for hours on end, until every last trace of worry had been shaken off in her wake, and only then would she dismount and walk among the trees.

Sooner or later, she'd encounter one of the talking beasts, or a dryad who didn't believe in coming to court too often. And she would sit there and talk with them for hours about their lives, the ordinary day to day existence that she found so precious and beautiful. Sometimes they would confide in her, their own worries and troubles: problems that she could help them with, arguments with their neighbors. And even though she had fled the castle to avoid the worries and problems there, she found herself glad to help with these new troubles. Most of the time, it only took a word here and there to set things at ease. Sometimes, not even that, as all they wanted was someone to listen to them, to tell them that what they felt and wanted was important. Lucy could do that easily. There were times she wanted nothing else, herself.

She'd ride back in before sunset, to deal with Susan's scoldings and Mrs. Beaver's fretting, able to cope with them again after a day's break. Peter never said much, aside from asking her to give him a little more warning next time. He, at least, seemed to understand why she needed to escape so much.

Flying away from the castle at times kept her grounded, and helped her remember what was important in the end.


	2. Edmund

1.

He never let himself forget who he had been before. Ever.

Susan didn't understand it, he could tell. She was relieved that he had grown and matured, that he'd become a good king in her eyes, that he had worked hard to be a good brother to them all. His gentle sister would rather he had moved on completely and let his guilt go. She believed that he had earned his salvation.

Edmund had knew better.

Peter had understood it a bit more. Then again, there are some things that he thought brothers were just better at getting than sisters, and Peter had spent more time with him than Susan did. Peter had understood what it meant to have a constant knowledge of the burden placed upon your shoulders, how it would both strengthen and exhaust you in turn. Peter's burden had been his responsibility as High King, and Edmund knew it had weighed upon Peter as strongly as Edmund's guilt had lain upon him. Still, there was a level that Peter could not have understood. Peter's responsibility had been laid upon him as a great trust when Aslan had judged him worthy, and Peter had worked each day to live up to that judgment, and had succeeded more than he failed. Edmund's burden had come from his failure. He carried it, not to prove his worth, but to remind himself of how little he deserved the second chance he had been given. He couldn't squander that gift with forgetfulness.

It had always been hard for Edmund to tell how Lucy had felt about it. At times, it was as if she hadn't ever seen it at all. Whereas Peter and Susan had looked past his former sins and seen him, Lucy had seemed to blaze through them and erase any lingering trace of them without noticing at all. That, despite the fact that all but the worst of his failings had been aimed solely at her.

At other times, he had caught her frank gaze upon him, and had wondered if it was not the case that she had seen his past sins more clearly than anyone else. But having seen them, it had been as if they simply had reminded her that all of them were imperfect and in need of mercy, not just him.

Those were the moments when he thought that who he was before was gone forever.

2.

He had a rather sardonic sense of humor that never failed to strike at the worst possible moments. Like when yet another diplomatic envoy came through proposing a marriage-alliance with Narnia –for once, looking to Peter as the potential victim instead of Susan.

They'd brought the girl along with them, and really, for a foreign princess they knew almost nothing about, she wasn't all that bad. She was reasonably intelligent, polite to the various Narnians she encountered, and hadn't said anything to insult or upset Lucy, which automatically put her ahead of a good half of Susan's potential suitors so far. Especially the last one, who had failed on all three counts.

Naturally, in the face of all this, Peter was terrified of her and spent the majority of his time in her presence in his full 'High King" attitude. He was polite, gracious, noble, and more stiff and formal than a centaur at his most rigid. This situation lasted for nigh onto a month before Edmund, truly exasperated, finally gave up and jokingly suggested over breakfast that he'd marry the girl himself if it would get Peter to forget about being the High King for a bit and go back to being his brother again.

In retrospect, he might have done better to wait until after Peter had finished eating his toast. Or for a time when Susan had not just taken a rather larger than usual sip of tea.

Lucy had laughed her head off, though. As had the visiting princess, who'd then had the wit to suggest, over her sputtering ambassador's objections, that they table the matter of an alliance for a few years, and perhaps discuss it later, when Edmund was of marriageable years.

3.

The first time he had muttered a sarcastic comment when they were negotiating mining rights with a group of dwarves, they announced that they'd only deal with him from that point on, because Peter was too nice to be trustworthy.

Peter had turned a fascinating shade of puce before politely washing his hands of it and turning the rest of the negotiations over to his younger brother. Edmund thought the diplomacy with which Peter had accepted the insult to his honor possibly proved their point to the dwarves, so when he took Peter's place in leading the discussion, he spent most of the rest of the day explaining exactly how much they'd erred in their judgement, sharpening his tongue upon them in a way he'd normally be ashamed of behaving towards one of his subjects.

Later on, after the negotiations were over, Peter said he hadn't minded, as it got him out of three days worth of tedious councils. Furthermore, he noted that Edmund had gotten a better deal out of the dwarves in payment for their insult of the High King than Peter would ever have pressed for receiving. In the end, their behaviors in this negotiation became one more tactic they would reach for in difficult times, Peter leading with Edmund there to support him against all comers.

4.

He understood Susan the best, he thought, but he was undeniably closest to Lucy.

In truth, Queen Susan the gentle was simplicity itself to understand, if you had only shared her nature. He did.

They had both shared the same sense of remove from their surroundings, the same tendency towards observation, reflection, and a habit of considering alternate points of view in any situation, whereas Lucy and Peter had blazed straight ahead and expected everyone to share the same forthright nature of which they possessed in such abundance. If Edmund had wanted a decent chess match, he would have played Susan and goaded her into giving it her all, because she had been able to plan multiple strategies and hide where she was going better than anyone else. He and Susan had both understood how each other's minds worked, and they had been able to communicate quite clearly in language opaque to all others around. It was why they had paired so well and so often on diplomatic missions that had left Peter brusque and annoyed or Lucy in a fury. In speech they had balanced one another, her ability to sooth even the roughest temperaments contrasting with his more acerbic wordings. Together, they had rarely been unsuccessful in achieving whatever it was that Narnia had needed from any treaty or accord.

Beyond all that, he had understood and shared her tendency to hold herself to impossibly high standards, and her propensity to lambaste herself whenever she failed. After all, he had done the same whenever his past actions had come to mind. He understood more than anyone the relentless drive to improve, and the feeble hope that by doing so, one might finally feel worthy. It had taken him years to put to rest his own demons, years to remember the words Aslan had spoken to him after his rescue, about grace and forgiveness and not being worthy, but instead allowing another to love you despite your failings.

For him, understanding his older sister had been as natural as breathing.

And yet, even with the great depth of understanding he found he had for Susan, it was Lucy's presence he had sought out time and again above any other. He had not understood her as well, there had been times when he had believed he would never comprehend her openhearted joy and love of life, but he had craved it with every fiber of his being. When he had been with Lucy, he found that he had striven to be the man she had seen him as, a true King of Narnia, and her beloved brother.

Finally, he had realized that Lucy had seen him as Aslan once had, with all of the good and the bad he knew he held within his soul, and had loved him for it. How could he not have loved her company when she had blessed him with that?

5.

He had loved the law in all forms. In the years immediately following their coronation, he'd immersed himself in the laws of Narnia; the wisdom of past kings and queens shaping all that was to follow in the land.

The laws had given him a structure to learn from, a framework which had taught him in every word written and every thought implied, what it was that Narnia had held true and sacred, what ideals had been etched into every Narnian's soul. The same ideals he had seen reflected in his siblings, bravery, compassion, and faithfulness which had been as natural to them as breathing, but which he had found himself striving and often failing to grasp upon every occasion.

He had struggled for months over the first law he had written as King, painstakingly writing and rewriting it to be clear, to answer the need he'd seen from his subjects and the hole it had filled in the legal code, to make it fit into place among the other laws and offer one more protection for the citizens of Narnia.

He'd been sick with worry over it, stomach a tense knot and throat nearly closed over with anxiety as he'd presented the final draft to his teachers, an extremely patient pairing of a badger and a centaur, for their approval. When Mossfitter had patted his hand with a densely furred paw and told him in his gravelly, whiskery voice that he had done quite well, and Herun had nodded in agreement, he'd had to sit down quite fast in relief.

He'd felt the same kind of tension a short month later, when he'd first been called in to mediate between two arguing otters over a disputed stretch of bank. No one else seemed to understand how much it mattered, how vitally important it was for him to live up to what the others called him, to truly be just.

When he had finally gotten frustrated with the way his siblings had seemed to ignore his valid reasons for being so worried, he had confronted Peter about it, in the confident knowledge that Peter wouldn't try to protect his feelings when he answered. He had been rocked when Peter had turned around with an exasperated sigh and told him that of course they had ignored his worries, because the only one who couldn't see how much better a job Edmund did at judging wisely and compassionately than the rest of them combined was Edmund.

He'd never thought that the others might see more in his actions than he himself did.


	3. Susan

1.

Susan loves thunderstorms.

She normally feels them in the air before they arrive, as the ground beneath her feet grows tense and expectant, and the breeze becomes taut and energized. Moreover, she simply senses them as the years go on and she becomes accustomed to Narnian weather, and her skin begins to prickle with the knowledge of the approaching storm.

When she feels them come, she makes her apologies as are fitting and leaves for her place. All the Narnians and her siblings know by now not to question it, they accept her need for this as they do Lucy's flights from the castle, as something each sister needs. As for the ambassadors and occasional suitors, well, one learns quickly not to rebuke a Queen in her own castle.

She leaves the common areas behind her. There is a small room, two-thirds of the way up on the second highest of the towers, which opens up onto a sheltered balcony. It falls in the lee of the castle in all but the worst storms, and Susan knows from long experience that she may stand there without fear of her dress suffering anything worse than a slight dampening.

But when she is up on the balcony she remains high enough and far enough out to truly feel the presence of the storm. The winds will strike against her skirts until they snap like sails upon the sea, and blow her hair into tangles she will regret only later, if at all. The lightning cracks she feels as buffets upon her senses, and when the thunder peals in reply she feels it as much in her bones as she does with her ears. It is cataclysmic, cathartic in its intensity, and the fury of the storm purges her as gold is refined in the fury of the forge.

These storms leave her free to breathe again.

2.

She remembers the most about where they came from of all of them. Lucy and Peter at times seem to even forget that anything existed save for Narnia, and Edmund, she fears, remembers only the worst, so that he will not lose sight of how he has been changed by the transition.

Only she seems to remember any details of what happened Before. She recalls it only in fragments, scraps that she pieces together as if they were to become a quilt-top like the one Mrs. Beaver helped her sew last autumn. A lullaby and the sent of lavender and soap have become mother for her, while impossibly broad hands, tobacco smoke, and a laugh which is echoed more and more each day by Peter's own she knows meant father before the war. She remembers a beach with human children playing noisily while the animals are strangely silent, scratch woolen skirts falling only as far as her knees, and skies a washed-out blue gray she never sees in Narnia.

And she remembers with a pang the joy and sorrow of the other place. The fear she felt when the skies erupted at night with terrifying bangs and the scent of burning buildings on the air, the safety of being a cherished daughter, the odd waxy taste upon her lips the one time her mother had dressed her up for a special occasion.

She misses not having to be the one in charge the most, she thinks. It would at times be a great relief to only have to worry about herself and her family, instead of considering the fate of an entire country filled with creatures she loves too well to ever allow herself to fail.

3.

She enjoys the grand balls, the diplomatic missions to far off kingdoms, the chance to see things she's never experienced and taste new foods. But more than that, she loves the quiet pleasures of home, her siblings at her side and everyone in their proper place.

The warmer months are when they are most likely to be scattered. Travel to foreign lands is safer on land or by sea in the summer months, when the roads are well traveled and the worst of the storms and difficult weather have passed. This is true for both diplomats and armies, she knows well, as there have been several incursions along their boundaries upon all sides, incursions she and her siblings have necessarily ridden out to combat.

So she rejoices when they are all home, where they belong. When she knows that should she need her brothers, she need only step out into the training yards, or into the study, or to one of only a few other places and be certain of finding them there. When she knows that her sister is never that far away, to be found in the company of any of the Narnians. When she can spend the day working, in the kitchens, or the sewing rooms, or in the main hall, doing what she knows she is well suited to do, being the calm voice to end quarrels between her subjects. And underneath it all along is the constant reassurance that she is not alone, that her siblings are safe with her.

At those times, she thinks that she will never wish to leave her land and her family.

4.

She does like the suitors. Most of them are really quite charming, even if she has learned not to trust that their charm demonstrates their true character. It is still rather pleasant to be courted, to be told, and told honestly, that she is lovely, that they believe her to be special, that she is worthy of admiration and respect. It's hard not to find herself becoming flattered by all the attention with which she is showered. And while she is flattered, she still finds it a relatively simple task to look beyond the gracious words and see the men within, to send them on their way with a smile, a laugh, and a treaty of peace, rather than her hand, for none of them have ever made her wish to leave her home and her family to go with them. She begins to think she is wise about the hearts of men.

It is only after Rabadash, after that disaster where she fails, for the first time, to see clearly and look beyond the lovely words to the cruel and ugly heart, that she wonders if she's been mistaken all along.

She cannot confide in her younger siblings on this matter, they are too close for her ease to the events of her failure, and too far in terms of age for her to willingly burden them all the more with her anguish at the pain their people have endured on her account. When Peter returns from the north a fortnight later, she lets Edmund recount the tale in public, and catches his gaze after the story is completed. He will seek her out later, she knows, and she can make a clean breast of all of it with him.

Hours later, in their private study, she confesses all, the desire for her suitors' flattery, her hubris in believing that she could always determine what they wished from her, her pain at the loss of her subjects in the battle that followed. She weeps at the end of it, gasping, shuddering sobs which drench the shoulder of his tunic as he holds her. When he speaks, finally, it is with words of comfort and support, for the main. The only exception comes when he exasperatedly asks her how she could possibly need her suitors to flatter her, when she should know quite well that all of Narnia holds her in high regard, and that her siblings and Aslan both loved her beyond words.

She'd never thought of it that way, before.

5.

She loves baking bread.

After all these years, she's still not sure what it is about baking, or the bread in particular, that calls out to her and soothes her so much. Perhaps it is the order and simplicity in the act which appeals to her, the certain knowledge that, as long as she follows the recipe correctly, she will always be able to follow the same procedure and gain the same result. With so much else in her life contingent and changing, the never-ending dance of diplomacy where none speak their minds plainly, the constancy of bread is a balm to her spirits.

Perhaps it is just that it is the work of her hands. A few hours of effort, and she will have something discernible to show for it, something that her family and her subjects all enjoy afterwards. Most of her other tasks are subtle, the results barely detectable to an outside perspective, and at times she enjoys being able to physically prove that what she does matters, that she can have an impact.

All she can say for certain is that she loves to slip down to the kitchens wearing her oldest gown, the blue linen that is no longer suitable to wear on normal occasions, and be set to work amid the flour and the yeast and the bread bowls. Lucy comes along sometimes, and they have some of their best conversations when she helps Susan kneed the dough and braid it into elegant loaves. It's there that they can at last relax and be sisters together, not queens.

She wouldn't trade that part of it for all the world.


End file.
